The pleasant weeks flew by, a round of enjoyments. Maud found herself in great request. She and Mrs. Vereker held quite a little levée every morning. Day after day a never-failing stream of visitors poured along the path to the modest but picturesque residence where these two beauties waited to charm mankind. The grass-plot in front was worn quite bare by a succession of ponies, who waited there while their owners were worshipping within. No young officer who arrived for a holiday considered himself at all _en règle_ till he had been to pay his respects to this adorable couple. Mrs. Vereker was none the less attractive, as she knew very well, for being contrasted with another charming woman, whose charms were of a different order. 'Blest pair of syrens!' Desvoeux used to say in his impudent fashion; 'it is too charming to have you both together--a dangerous conspiracy against the peace of mind of one-half of the species.' 'Ah!' Mrs. Vereker would answer, turning her violet eyes upon him, with a sweet reproachful smile, which would have melted any heart but Desvoeux's; 'and when one of the syrens is young and lovely, and just arrived from the Plains. There _were_ days, my dear Maud, when Mr. Desvoeux used to want to ride with me and used to run my errands so nicely! Alas! alas! for masculine weathercocks! I am very jealous of you, my dear, I'd have you to know, and shall some day tear your pretty eyes out. You do too much execution by half. Meanwhile, here is my dear General Beau coming up the road.' Maud shrugged her shoulders and arched her pretty brow, and both Desvoeux and Mrs. Vereker burst out laughing to see the General portrayed. 'The General to the life!' cried Desvoeux, '"like a poet or a peer With his arched eyebrow and Parnassian sneer."' 'I protest against the poet,' cried Mrs. Vereker, laughing; 'we always flirt in the very plainest prose. As for his eyebrows, they are adorable.' Then the General arrived, as great a dandy as ever Poole turned out, and was in the drawing-room before Maud's gravity was at all re-established. 'And what was the laugh about?' he inquired. 'About a Parnassian sneer,' said Desvoeux with great presence of mind; 'and where do you come from, General?' 'I have been calling at the Fotheringhams,' said the General; 'my intimacy with Mrs. Fotheringham does not incline me to wish to be one of her daughters.' 'Poor girls!' said Mrs. Vereker, 'we were commiserating them the other day, and saying how cruelly their mother treats them.' 'Ah!' said the General, 'she does indeed; actually makes the poor things do lessons all the morning. A certain gentleman, a friend of mine, I cannot tell you his name, went there the other day with the most serious intentions towards the little one, the one with yellow hair, and actually found them hard at work at Mill's "Logic."' 'Two women were grinding at the mill,' said Desvoeux, 'and one was taken and the other left, I suppose?'